Sucre: sugar, spice and everything nice

If we thought Uyuni was high, we were not prepared for Potosí, the hightest city in the world. 

That's why we skipped it.

On the road, skipping Potosí because of reasons.

After careful consideration,  we decided that we didn't need to do all the places on the so-called gringo trail, and we went straight to Sucre instead, "The white city of America".

We had been reading plenty about Potosí, and apparently the only thing that was sort of worth doing there was a tour of the mines, and we were not that interested in doing it. 

So we decided that, since we were going through it,  we could technically tick "the highest city in the world" off the list.

How happy we were with our decision when we passed Potosí! As every mining town I've seen, it had a feel of general sadness about it. 

We saw only a few remarkable things: a bus that carried a living goat on top, along with many other goods in humongous burlap bags; a lady that was allowing her little girl to happily LICK A POWER CABLE; and numerous people yelling the names of cities/towns where the buses were going to, in an endless litany.

The bus with the goat (goat is sadly not visible)

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The bus that took us to Sucre was full. As in so full there were people standing up for hours.

It smelled like earth, spring onions and the occasional mandarin, when people felt like snacking. It was actually not too bad.

There was no toilet, but whenever someone felt the call of nature, they would just let the driver know, and the bus would stop for them to go on the side of the road.

Only within that bus ride, we saw 5 ladies get off the bus, squat,  pull up their skirts a little bit and relieve themselves without any shame... I just couldn't help thinking they probably all go commando.
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We arrived in Sucre at night and saw the outskirts, which made us doubt if we were actually entering "the most charming city in Bolivia".

Countless amounts of garbage were piled in literally every corner, surrounded the river, and just laid in piles where feral dogs competed for the juicy bits of it.

But then, we made it to the city centre... and there it was: the white city, the charming, beautiful, whitewashed, adorable Sucre.

Little colonial streets at night.

We just spent 2 days in Sucre, but it was enough for me to fall deeply in love with it.

By law, the buildings in the city have to be whitewashed
once a year. Here, the photo evidence of that fact.

More whiteness.

And even more.

Old church.

More pretty white buildings.

After a one-night hostel failure (bed bugs, need I say more?), we got a well lit, comfortable room that we used as a base to explore around: the markets, the funny little buses, the lovely buildings... and THE FOOD.

Sucre is home of my favorite cake place ever, where we indulged on strawberry cheesecake, and a triple chocolate and pear ridiculousness that makes me cry tears of happiness everytime I remember it.

The most beautiful and delicious cheese cake EVER.

Happy me and our two cakes.

Sucre is also home of The Condor café, a non-profit vegetarian restaurant which was rated 1 on Tripadvisor for many good reasons.

We had dinner at Condor café, and for 25 Bolivianos (around 6 Aussie dollars) each, we had a 3 course meal, plus natural juice and dessert.

Note: when they say the spicy sauce is spicy, what they mean is IT IS SPICY, which you might not really believe after a few weeks in Bolivia.

Very nice meal and VERY SPICY SAUCE.

The streets are also full of cute surprises and even cuter people.

On our second night we were going back to the hostel after dinner. The streets were pretty dark and deserted.

 After Buenos Aires, Valparaiso (Chile's own "stab city"), and other beautiful cities that become rough death traps at night, we were pretty aware of our surroundings and maybe a bit paranoid.

 Suddenly, this guy buying food from a street vendor started talking to us in english (!), instantly recognized me as Argentinian after only saying "qué tal" (!!), and said to Chey that Argentinians are the most beautiful women in the world and that he was a very lucky guy, which made me blush and made us both feel silly for being so paranoid.

The city is actually very chilled, and people treated us in the loveliest of ways, regardless of the insane amount of tourists they get to treat all the time.

They even have this guys dressed like zebras that help people cross the road.

Zebra crossing

Looks like an awesome job.

 All in all, we had the loveliest time in Sucre (which means "sugar" in French, which makes a lot of sense).

And (only a bit reluctantly) we left for La Paz on the third afternoon, after feasting on tiramisú.



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Random note: Since I am South American, I am aware of the factors that make so many of our cities have beautiful and rich looking "historical centres" and insanely poor outskirts very close by, but I'll talk about it later.